On learning of the defection of Hampton, Wilkinson called a council of war, the result of which was a determination to ascend Salmon River and go into winter quarters. Thus ended ingloriously one more of the ill-advised and ill-managed attempts to conquer Lower Canada.
The cost of these campaigns had been enormous to both belligerents. The Americans had spent about two and a half million dollars in building vessels on lakes Erie, Ontario, and Champlain; which was a large sum for that day, and yet was small in comparison with the incidental cost of maintaining considerable bodies of troops in idleness through a whole summer while waiting for the fleets to be built. It was estimated that the conveyance of each cannon to Sackett's Harbor had cost a thousand dollars. The flour for Harrison's army, by the time it reached the troops, had cost a hundred dollars a barrel. There were long distances through the wilderness of Western New York and Northern Ohio where supplies could only be carried on packhorses, half a barrel to a horse, and other horses had to follow with forage for those that were carrying the supplies. Most of the horses were used up by a single trip. Of four thousand used in carrying provisions { 161}to Harrison, but eight hundred were alive the next spring. In Canada the hardships of war rested heavily upon the people as well as the soldiers. All their salt had come from the United States, and what little there was on that side of the border when communication with this country ceased was held at a dollar a quart. At Kingston flour was thirty dollars a barrel. So scarce were provisions of all kinds, that the Government appointed commissioners to determine how much food each family should be permitted to consume. In the British camps, lean cattle were killed to prevent their starving to death, and then the meat was eaten by the soldiers. In later wars we have often succeeded in shooting more men, but seldom in producing more misery.
The withdrawal of troops from the Niagara frontier to take part in Wilkinson's expedition left the defence of that line almost entirely to militia, and the term for which the militia had been called out expired on the 9th of December. The next day General George McClure, who had been left in command at Fort George, found himself at the head of but sixty effective men, while the British General Drummond had brought up to the peninsula four hundred troops and seventy Indians--released by the failure of Wilkinson's expedition--and was preparing to attack him. { 162}McClure thereupon determined to evacuate the fort, as the only alternative from capture or destruction, and remove his men and stores across the river to Fort Niagara. He also determined to burn the village of Newark, that the enemy might find no shelter. The laudable part of this plan was but imperfectly carried out; he failed to destroy the barracks, and left unharmed tents for fifteen hundred men, several pieces of artillery, and a large quantity of ammunition, all of which fell into the hands of Drummond's men. But the inexcusable part--the burning of a village in midwinter, inhabited by noncombatants who had been guilty of no special offence--was only too faithfully executed. The inhabitants were given twelve hours in which to remove their goods, and then the torch was applied, and not a house was left standing.